They Ask Me Why I Smile
by daemanals
Summary: A lover deals with her loss the only way she knows how. "They ask me why I smile. They ask me all the time."


**Author's Note: **Just a short, not so sweet (it's not my style), one-shot. As always, read, review, & enjoy.

**Disclaimer**: My characters are based off of JK Rowling's lovely, ingenious creation. The brilliant use of the English language, all mine :)

**They Ask Me Why I Smile**

_"Si tous les autres mourraient mais que lui restait je continuerais d'être; si tous les autres survivaient mais que lui disparaissait l'univers me deviendrait étranger." _

_-Edward Culle__n_

They ask my why I smile. After all, I should be dealing with the pain, not pushing it aside. They wonder why I try to cover my grief with upturned lips. They just don't understand.

Sometimes they ask me why I even try. Why do I pretend to be happy when everyone, including myself, knows that inside I am nothing? The emptiness, I remind myself, won't swallow me. But it already has. My hollow eyes, my vacant laugh; everything I try to do reflects that one thing: his death.

Or maybe he's not dead, no one really knows anymore. They seem to think I have moved on, because I paint on a mask every morning. I stand tall, my chin out, and I act as though I am unfazed by his absence, as though I am strong enough to stand alone. They don't know that I sleep on the floor because the bed holds too many memories. They don't know that at night, when I hear the whisper of his voice, I talk to him, as though he is there. They don't know anything. They insist they do, but they couldn't possibly know how I feel.

The hardest part is in not knowing whether he is alive or dead. If he's dead, it'd be impossible for him to come back to me, but if he's alive…well, I can't make up his mind for him. Nobody really understood us anyway; they just all played along. And now that he's gone, they just act as if they've been my friends all along, as if they know me. But they don't. They don't know anything about me or about him.

If there was one thing we knew, it was that only we really understood each other. Whether the world embraced us or pushed us aside didn't matter as long as it was us—together. But he's gone now and I am either accepted or rejected on my own.

The bedroom is so barren, dark, and cold. I swear sometimes, in the emptiness, I feel his arms wrap around my frail body. I feel his warm breath on my neck, ticking my ear. I smell his cologne as the odor weaves in and out of my nostrils. There are moments that I can almost taste his lips again, possessively on mine. However, when I wake up the next morning, I realize with harsh clarity that it was all just a dream—a dream that means absolutely nothing because it isn't real. Nothing can replace him; not even the ghost of his memory, sleeping beside me.

The war is still going on and the casualties are piling up. Now he is nothing but a name on a never-ending list. He is forgotten; an insignificant person to everyone in this world. His name fades from the earth like the light of the day. But he was everything to me. I refuse to fight in the war, although it was all that used to matter to me and him. Now, it just seems worthless. Besides, who would want a stupid Slytherin fighting for the light-side anyway? That's what I always heard them whisper about us when they thought no one was listening.

The sky is always grey. I'm not sure if my sorrow paints it that way or if it's taunting me, reminding me of his eyes. When I look at it, I remember he told me once to be patient and wait for the sun to break through. He always believed that one day it would come and chase away all the shadows, throwing all that was dark back into the light. I think he liked this analogy because it was so representative of us. So I wait for the sun and cling to the hope that maybe it'll bring him. That is, if he's still alive, because my heart prays that he's dead. It whispers to me in the cold of the night, when I teeter on the precipice of insanity, that that's the reason he's not coming back to me.

I curl back up on my spot on the rough, unforgiving stone and close my eyes against reality. There are no tears, there never have been. I promised him before the war that I would never cry; Slytherins don't cry. After all, we'd have to have feelings to cry. Then again, we'd have to have feelings to love, I suppose. I loved him. I have never been certain of anything, but I know that I loved him with everything I had in me because I still do now, and you can't fall out of love. They just don't understand that. No matter who they lose, they still have someone else; but he was all I had. He was my hope and my strength. He was my light in the darkness, when I was lost in the abyss.

They ask my why I smile. They ask me all the time. It's the only thing I know how to do anymore.

**Author's Note: **The is a slightly revamped version of a one-shot I wrote years ago. I intended it to be Pansy talking about Draco but I suppose it can be whoever you want it to be. That is the great thing about language. It can paint a picture with an abundance of details and still remain vague enough to allow the reader the freedom of interpretation. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed!


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